our container gardens

I thought it was time for another "garden" tour. It's handy to have a record of what the garden looks like at the beginning of the season, things change so quickly! This is what it looked like last month.

The june strawberriesare looking really good this year! The pots are loaded with fruit, even the everbearing variety (not shown) which normally don't do much until much later are growing substantial sized leaves right now. I'm eager to see how much we harvest!

I also transplanted a bunch of the lipstick strawberry shoots from last year and they are doing well. They produce the tiny "wild" strawberries which will be fun for the kids to nibble on. The flowers are normally bright pink but this one for some reason has changed to white?!

The triple crown blackberry has successfully multiplied! I noticed that the runners had rooted when left on the ground all winter so I tucked them into another pot to see what would happen. Looks like we'll have a nice crop.

The blueberries look like they are also going to give us a nice harvest this year. They are so pot bound, my main concern is keeping them alive rather than how much fruit we get from them.

Note: We also go to Upick farms for strawberries and blueberries. We are big smoothie makers so we go through way more than what we can grow on this property. One day when the 11 blueberry bushes are planted in the ground and the strawberry patch gets going they will be able to produce more than what we'll need for a year.

The rhubarb appears to be done for the year. We were able to make one pie (for Mother's Day!) with the stalks which we are happy with as we're not big rhubarb eaters. Again we're just basically keeping the plant alive until it can be transplanted into the earth.

The black currant is covered in little green berries so the kids (and hubby) are getting excited about eating them.

We were so disappointed when we discovered that the prune plum died over winter, however, the stalk that was growing from the base of it survived! It's doing quite well so we're going to have to do some reading about what to do now?

I transplanted the kale seedlings that we started indoors and they are looking strong and healthy. We're all dreaming of kale chips already!

The herbs are happy too. The parsley has multiplied quite a bit and I actually just hacked the rosemary back. It had gotten way to big for that space.

I am using the rosemary cuttings in bouquets to keep the mosquitoes away. Thank you Mother Nature for that natural simple bug repellant!

The lemon balm has grown like crazy, I'm going to have to dry some soon!

I thought for sure I killed the winter savory but it's coming back green and happy! As did all the various pots of purple chives I have scattered about the yard.

The basil seedlings are still in the living room window. They are still to small and tender to go outside and the nights are still a bit chilly.

The moroccan tea mint is doing very well but

sadly the 3 chocolate mints all have powdery mildew. boo hoo!

The 4 apple trees also have some powdery mildew so I'm not sure what to do with all of them?

The bergamot (aka: bee balm) is huge right now so we're hoping to get some flowers this year and dry more leaves for tea!

The perpetual spinach bolted big time! It produced all winter but with the warm weather it went a little crazy! I think I'll collect the seeds and pull it out.

My hubby transplanted all of the tomatoes on the weekend so we should have lots to snack on in about 6-8 weeks.

Some are in pots and some in hanging baskets. (we don't plant flowers in them anymore, just edibles!)

The kids planted all of our pole and bush bean seeds inside and yesterday they poked through the soil! This was my husband's idea, I usually just direct sow them so we'll see how this turns out.

Both of the kids brought home seed sprouting science experiments from school so we have 3 shoots of (we think) pinto beans and

3 chick pea sprouts to nurture!

The mixed pot of shelling and snap peas are climbing happily up their trellis. The kids love to eat these raw. No flowers on the peas yet but you can see that the rhododendron behind is ablaze with colour! (michaelmas daisy and lavender are in the pots on the left)

On Sunday I planted more seeds - lettuce and swiss chard outside and some cucumber seeds inside.

My sundeck garden is coming along as I slowly fill in the pots. Right now I have 2 blue cornflowers, a Gold Nugget tomato, chive, winter savory, mint, 2 pots of lettuce seeds, a pot of swiss chard seeds, and a lipstick strawberry. I plan to add some blue trailing lobelia and some orange and yellow flowers (not sure what yet) to brighten up the lower pots.

Phew, I didn't think the list would end up this long!

Hope you are having fun in your garden!

xoxo

~ joey ~

P.S. There has also been some
morefairy garden action going on in the side garden so I'll have to
come back another time to update you on that! ;o)

Hmmmn, I thought I had at one point shared our kale recipes but I can't find them so I guess I just thought about it and didn't do it. Basically we just rub a bit of olive oil onto the leaves, season with salt and then bake at the lowest temperature (ours is 150*F) in the oven until crisp. Patiently waiting is the hardest part! We have also tried some flavoured kale chips so maybe I'll just have to make up a batch and write a post! Ya! a perfect excuse to make some!xoxo~ joey ~

Welcome Karen!Thank you for your comment, I must admit I don't think of our garden as cheerful due to the lack of colourful flowers. With the limited space we have I chose to forgo most of the non-edibles until we have a "real" garden.xoxo~ joey ~

I can't believe how much variety you're managing to grow in a container garden! Such imagination and dedication - I'm going to resist feeling like you're putting me to shame, and get inspired to get on with some new seeds in pots NOW!!!

My intentions are to inspire, never to put people to shame! We have been at this container gardening for a long time (sadly) so we have had lots of failures too. Right now we're having troubles getting the pole beans to germ, so we've just reseeded. Perhaps you could say we are "persistent gardeners" as we never give up and are always thankful for whatever we get no matter how small the harvest. It takes the pressure off and makes it so much more enjoyable! (maybe the plants can feel that too?!)Best of luck with your seeds, if you have any questions please drop me a line, I'd be happy to help!xoxo~ joey ~

Yes, our bergamot hasn't flowered for us yet, so I'm hoping it will this year, I don't even know what colour it is! The lemon balm grows like a weed here so we'll keep both of them in containers even when we have a real garden. They are both related to mint. I understand that lemon verbena is better for tea but is much harder to over winter.~ joey ~